Why Does It Have to Be a Battery

8/13/2019 Why Does It Have to Be a Battery

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Why does it have to be a battery? Why not pumped storage? Exotic battery types are going to run into problems ifthey are rolled out worldwide due to the shortage of exotic metals like lithium, cadmium, etc. A better Idea is to useexotic metals like uranium and thorium directly - in a nuclear power station.

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Lokolo6 December 2011 9:38AM

Tesla Motors already does this and a lot of money goes in to battery research for them, which they then sell to other

car manufacturers.

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LeoHickman6 December 2011 9:39AM

@HarrietHarridan

Why does it have to be a battery? Why not pumped storage?

Sure, we can discuss any and all forms of energy storage here. And, yes, you're correct to point out some of the

problems already associated with batteries. Will batteries of the future be able to avoid some of these problems byusing new/alternative materials?


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riccochet6 December 2011 9:47AM

I am not particularly au fait with the technology behind it, but I understood that flow batteries would be a goodcandidate for this. They work by having a huge pool of electrolyte and as it is charged, they pump it out and replace it

with uncharged electrolyte, etc. Then the discharge works in the reverse manner.

Seehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_batteryfor a wikipedia description.

ISTR there was somebody living on an island in the northeasterrn coastal area of the US who had built such a system

and was able to go off grid and not need a generator. (I think I read about that on Slashdot.)

The other biggie is better adsorbtion of hydrogen as that has the potential for incredible energy densities and, as I

understand, very high conversion efficiencies in both directions.
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PKCarpenter6 December 2011 9:48AM

It doens't even have to be electrical energy that is stored. It could be converted to thermal, kinetic, pressure, etc and

then reconverted back to electrical when required.

During the first season of KERS in F1 some teams experimented with flywheels and such a system is used in

Porsche's hybrid 911 GT3. Ground source heat pumps used heavily insulated water tanks to stored energy as they

cannot draw a high enough rate of energy (power) from the ground to supply things such has showers which arepower hungry.

The three questions are: what is the energy storage density, that is how much mass do you need to have per joule?;how quickly can you discharge the energy?; and how efficient the charging and discharging process is? For the third

point is depends where we are getting the energy from. If it is the braking system of a car or by burning fossil fuelsthen a high efficiency (and low entropy) is important. If it is from solar, wind then it just a question of cost.

While I don't see us driving around in rubber-band or balloon powered cars it would be nice to see more people, like

Porsche, experimenting with alternative energy stores to chemical batteries. For the most dense energy storage, and

probably the quickest release rate, storing energy at the atomic level in the form of heightened electron states or thesuch will probably be the optimum. I guess that's technically a laser so maybe we'll see something along those lines

in the future.


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HarrietHarridan6 December 2011 9:49AM

A lot of cash is already being spent on Ultracapacitors. But why bother? Just have nuclear for everything - problemsolved.


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PKCarpenter6 December 2011 10:02AM

Response toHarrietHarridan, 6 December 2011 9:49AM

I agree on the pro-nuclear stance. Power on-demand (unlike other green energy sources) and it has nothing to do

with the price of oil.
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Yes nuclear power station are expensive but you could base the price of power generated on the cost of construction

over the lifetime of the plant. Of course this would never happen with a privately owned nuclear power station. They

could price the electricity inline with that generated from fossil fuel stations and make themselves a healthy profit. Asthe price of coal and gas goes up in the future so would their profits.

As I see, nuclear power, can only be a nationalise option and that is something that the current government wouldnever proceed with.

Build nuclear, sell the electricity at cost and reduce the burden of utilities on the UK economy. Hey it might evenmake us competitive in the manufacturing sector.


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SenorHoppo6 December 2011 10:09AM

I have worked with a number of power storage firms, most notably VRB - vanadium Redox Batteries - which madeflow batteries for wind farms. They were sort of crossbetween fuel cells and battery, with ability for ultra deep cycling

and could smooth the flow of large wind farms. Uniquely they separated the storage element(electrolyte) from the

capacitor or power output.

Essentially they turned erratic spiky output into predictable, dispatchable power. Originally developed in Australia they

have allowed areas such as King Island between OZ and Tasmania to have huge wind penetration onto grid without

adverse effect.

Sumitomo corporation in Japan also utilised them. And Riso Labs in Denmark. The problems were in cost and

strategy. Small scale ones sold well as wind-diesel generator displacements for telecoms markets, but larger ones forlarger wind farms were prohibitive in terms of initial cost, insurance and all usual niggles/issues of new tech.

We tried to argue that wind farm operators could then charge more for power as it would be predicatble and

continuous and could respond quicklyto demand, but the upfront costs were crippling.

However, they have been bought by Chinese company and being rolled out, not on mass scale, but good numbers.

It should be priority for all grid operators and utility companies - but they are not that far sighted!

Elsewhere, the storage debate should also look at demand-response markets as form of storage, and networked

capacity from car batteries in electric vehicles, households etc as new forms of decentralised renewables hook up.

I will post details of the other wind-storage systems later - sadly am at work so no time...!


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SenorHoppo6 December 2011 10:12AM

And Harriet Harridan et al
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Nuclear will NOT solve everything - vital though it is. It can not respond quickly to demand, just pumps a continuous

base load which, though excellent, will not meet the spikes of half time surges etc. Gas is good for this, and other

forms.

But, to meet this, the real trick is in turning things off, hence earlier comment about demand-response markets. This

has real potential to make negawatts a major market very quickly using existing technology (from telecoms andothers)


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howardmarch6 December 2011 10:15AM

I don't know enough about it, so could somebody explain why energy from renewable sources cant be used to createhydrogen by electrolysis for later re-use?

I suspect that the problem may be efficiency, but this would presumably appear as waste heat, which could perhapsbe piped for heating in the same area.

Hydrogen is tricky and dangerous to store, but if done at a fixed site (e.g. a hydrogen power station) it doesn't appear

too difficult to achieve.

Going beyond this, is there any chemical method that could use hydrogen to synthesise simple hydrocarbons? If

octane could be produced, the problems of (relatively) safe storage and transport are already well understood, and it

could probably be used in petrol engines.


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fr33cycler6 December 2011 10:15AM

Electrical energy storage is likely to become more important over time - though we do tend to talk about it as if it issome massive new problem peculiar to renewables. It isn't - most of our towns still have gasometers dotted around

them to ensure we could cope with fluctuating gas demand, and there are stock piles of fossil fuels at refineries and

power stations all round the country.

However we can minimise the amount of storage we need by tackling at demand management too. Many of the

things we run on electricty have some flexibility as to when they take power and when they are in a rest state. A

fridge for example will turn on the compressor when the contents reach (say) 6 degrees, then turn it off when it hascooled to 3 degrees. But if it had cooled the contents to 4 degrees and then there was a shortage of power on the

grid, it would do no harm to switch off a little bit ealier. Likewise, if your milk was gradually creeping back up to 5

degrees and the fridge sensed an excess of power available on the grid, it could switch on and cool slightly earlier. 20

million fridges acting this way could reduce a lot of peaking on the grid.

The technology to do this can be retrofitted to a fridge today - it doesn't need smart grids etc - but there is no

incentive to do so, so nobody does. You can find more details here

http://www.dynamicdemand.co.uk/index.htm


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Similar tricks can be used with air-conditioning, water heating, etc etc. In time things that are plugged into the grid to

charge (like electric cars) could even allow some of their charge back out into the grid - effectively making our parked

car fleet one big battery.


Bluecloud6 December 2011 10:16AM

We need to build smart grids if you want to fully utilise energy storage.

Leo, I assume you are familiar with Peter Sinclair'sPlug-in Hybridsvideo, which shows the potential of connecting the

batteries in such vehicles to the smart grid.

I see solutions coming from combinations of existing technologies, which utilise energy that would otherwise be

wasted (e.g. baseload at night). Likewise the possibilities of utlisingdemand response.Fridges are a form of energystorage that can be controlled in an automated building connected to the smart grid.


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Another rather lovely historic example of energy storage is at Grimsby docks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimsby_Dock_Tower

Similar towers were common on docks and in factories etc - you can visit one in Limehouse andclimb up it. Postingthis partly to make the point again that energy storage is not a new problem, and partly because there is a nice

picture on wikipedia.


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Response toBluecloud, 6 December 2011 10:16AM

You said what I said quicker.
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However fridges can be used in a non-automated building too. You can sense the available power on the grid from

any plug socket through small variations in the AC frequency using technology that is decades old. We could do it

now.



Many thanks. Some really thoughtful/constructive comments already. Hope to have a professor of energy storage,

and some industry experts, joining the debate soon so please keep your thoughts/examples coming...


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Bluecloud6 December 2011 10:40AM

Response tofr33cycler, 6 December 2011 10:26AM

Yes we could address peak demand by automated load shedding. If I remember rightly this signal is simply areduction in thefrequency as load rises. The trouble is that to really have an impact we need to control this process

on a massive scale and interconnect the grid in a smart way, otherwise the mixed frequrency signals from diversegenerators will just lead to confusion, rather than coordinated control.

Still, smart grids are a long way off, so any simple solutions that enable demand response are welcome.


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LeoHickman

6 December 2011 11:05AM

I've just had this response fromPeter J. Hall,professor of energy storage at the University of Strathclyde...

The ability to store and release energy is important to every carbon-free energy future. Scenarios with a massive

contribution from renewables are the most frequently discussed because of the well-known intermittent or stochasticnature of renewables. However, a scenario in which nuclear fusion becomes an economic reality will have an even

greater reliance on storage technologies because the size of such fusion generators (several GW) is likely to dwarf

current coal and nuclear plants (~GW). Given the scale and nature of fusion energy, the electrical output will not be

able to follow fluctuations in demand. Additionally, since the UK will only need a few fusion generators, the effects of
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outage of such a plant would utterly be catastrophic. It is noteworthy that the UKs largest pumped storage

facility,Dinorwig,was originally constructed as a back up for nuclear generators.

TheEuropean Energy Research Alliance(UK representative -UKERC), a conglomerate of Europes largest nationallaboratories tasked with developing the strategic energy technologies for Europe, has recently announced a major

new joint programme in energy storage. Energy storage research in Europe has moved to centre stage.

The EERA concentrates on the following areas:

Hydrogen and chemical (fuel cells) Electrochemical (batteries and supercapacitors)

Mechanical (pumped hydro and flywheels)

Thermal

Superconducting magnetic energy

Techno-economics

This represents a very broad and sometimes bewildering range of technologies, which makes objective assessmentand comparisons difficult, especially when industrial vested interests are involved. When selecting an appropriate

technology a number of considerations need to be taken into account, such as size, efficiency and power handling

capability.

The latter is especially important and is best illustrated by storage for automotive applications. Batteries are very

good at storing large amounts of energy in small volumes, but cannot deliver adequate power for acceleration. Hence

they need to be combined with other devices, in this case supercapacitors, which can deliver power, but are not

effective at storing energy.

Although security of supply is an important consideration for the deployment of energy storage, we have recentlyshown that energy storage can be economically viable, especially given a suitable energy market. See...

http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2012/ee/c2ee02419eIt is hugely disappointing that the massive subsidies given to renewable generators are not reflected in the equally

important technologies of storage.

From a research point of view the UK has strong and active consortia in the areas of hydrogen and electrochemical

storage through the EPSRC-sponsoredSupergen consortia.However, there are no national facilities for scaling up

laboratory research into commercial devices. Industrially, the electrical storage network

(www.electricitystorage.co.uk)has been launched to represent UK industrial interests and the UK is especially strongin thermal storage for electrical generation

Where will the next breakthroughs occur?

In terms of hydrogen, the persistent problem is how to store it safely and at a high density. Solid-state storage in new

nano structured materials is currently being investigated. The Lithium air battery is another promising technology and

when realised will be able to contain at least 15 times more energy that conventional batteries. Finally, in terms of

power delivery, considerable progress is being made in supercapacitor technology, again based on the application ofnew nano materials and ionic liquids.

Professor Hall was invited to make this comment by theUK Energy Research Centre,which is funded bytheResearch Councils' Energy Programme.


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oldbrew6 December 2011 11:20AM

Molten salt storage is an interesting idea, but expensive at the moment. The process is described here.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/22/first-molten-salt-solar-power
http://www.fhc.co.uk/dinorwig.htmhttp://www.fhc.co.uk/dinorwig.htmhttp://www.fhc.co.uk/dinorwig.htmhttp://www.eera-set.eu/http://www.eera-set.eu/http://www.eera-set.eu/http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2012/ee/c2ee02419ehttp://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2012/ee/c2ee02419ehttp://www.energystorage.org.uk/http://www.energystorage.org.uk/http://www.energystorage.org.uk/http://www.electricitystorage.co.uk/http://www.electricitystorage.co.uk/http://www.electricitystorage.co.uk/http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/support/tiki-index.phphttp://www.ukerc.ac.uk/support/tiki-index.phphttp://www.ukerc.ac.uk/support/tiki-index.phphttp://www.rcuk.ac.uk/research/xrcprogrammes/energy/Pages/home.aspxhttp://www.rcuk.ac.uk/research/xrcprogrammes/energy/Pages/home.aspxhttp://www.rcuk.ac.uk/research/xrcprogrammes/energy/Pages/home.aspxhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/report-abuse/comment/13606215http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/report-abuse/comment/13606215http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/comment-permalink/13606215http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/comment-permalink/13606215http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/user/id/4047989http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/user/id/4047989http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/22/first-molten-salt-solar-powerhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/22/first-molten-salt-solar-powerhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/22/first-molten-salt-solar-powerhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/user/id/4047989http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/comment-permalink/13606215http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/report-abuse/comment/13606215http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/research/xrcprogrammes/energy/Pages/home.aspxhttp://www.ukerc.ac.uk/support/tiki-index.phphttp://www.electricitystorage.co.uk/http://www.energystorage.org.uk/http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2012/ee/c2ee02419ehttp://www.ukerc.ac.uk/http://www.eera-set.eu/http://www.fhc.co.uk/dinorwig.htm


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FC19676 December 2011 11:20AM

There are other options for storing energy. For instance water at Dinorwig power station in Wales: -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station

As for cars, the primary focus must be on battery electric, but don't forget the MDI compressed air powered car: -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_air_car

There may be more potential for energy storage using compressed air (heat is an issue).

Lots of us like the idea of hydrogen powered vehciles but it now seems that cost of manufacture and the cost of an

entirely new fuel supply/infrastructure network will prevent the dream becoming reality.

Then there is the story about Regenysis, the industrial sized battery: -

http://www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/ctm/publications/w_papers/documents/131006-32_clean_venture.pdf

But I would argue that concentrated solar thermal is the nearest thing to a silver bullet. The heat can be stored at the

plant, generating electricity throughout the night. The electricity can be transfered from the South, around Europe,

using High Voltage Direct Power transmission lines.

http://www.desertec.org/?gclid=CPnu-7un7awCFYEhtAod-XoLMQ

Hopefully Leo and Lucy will be able to bottom out the relative costs associated with the various differnt technologies.

Because it is cost that determines what will happen. The Desertec dream may be best but it would take the

governments of the EU to agree to fund the grid network.

As for nuclear - please remember that fusion may still be 60 years away. The ITER site suggests we may have to

wait until 2075: -

http://www.iter.org/

The supporters of nuclear fission still choose to ignore all the problems - seismic activity, seismic activity in europe

(we have big earthquakes but they are less frequent than Japan), nuclear proliferation (if you choose nuclear for the

world then every country of the world has access to the materials for bombs), terrorism (planes into buildings),

accidents, storage of waste, etc. You could opt for Thorium fission reactors but the R&D will take time - time humanitydoes not have.

I have reached the conclusion that we need the Manhatten Project on Concentrated Solar Thermal - Spain should bethe hub (at least to begin with), because it is a stable EU nation and its economy is dying - fast !

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jayb6 December 2011 11:23AM


9/69

David Roberts did a short piece recently on this:

http://www.grist.org/renewable-energy/2011-10-28-cool-energy-storage-projects-make-mockery-politician-pessimism

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FC19676 December 2011 11:26AM

I posted mine of 11.20 before reading Leo's response of 11.05 (checking my hyperlinks, etc). You will see there is

quite a bit more in my bit which Professor Hall has not touched upon. I would really welcome his thoughts.

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Plataea6 December 2011 11:28AM

Working on a couple of storage projects.

Electric vehicles - forget it as a potential store - lifetime battery cost far to expansive (BERR report 2009 circa 60

pence/kwhr - prices have not moved much since).

Li-iion - probably OK in LV distribution circuits - but issues with respect to multiple value layers need to be addressed.

Vanadium Reflow - multi-MWhr potential - looking at that now - costs starting to add up.

For mutli-day storage of electrical power way forward is what the Germans are looking at - electricity to gas followedby storage in the gas distribution network - addresses the issue of multi-day no-wind scenarios - which happen from

time to time.

Concerning the hydrogen problem - Germans working on that - basically methanisation - round-trip efficiency ain't so

good at the moment but will improve - anyway this is not German government policy so they will make it improve. Li-

air - saw a presentation at a storage conference last week - reminded me of IBM's vapour ware stuff in the 1970s -

1980s - looks nice but has some way to go.

Concerning the good profs comments on money - LCNF is providing money for storage deployment - which is a start.

Regarding blueclouds comment.: I was speaking to a company that does just that in the UK right now. I woudl add

that your comment was a bit "mixed frequency" - once a motor or generator is connected to the network then it tends

to be "driven" by the network frequency. One tends not to get different frenquencies across a network - although onedoes get harmonics - perhaps you were referring to that?


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stuartiannaylor6 December 2011 11:31AM

I am not sure if its an obsession with grid and corporate supply but all the solutions provided come from an obvious

monopoly.Energy reduction in terms of insulatation and passivhaus techniques would actually be more cost effective and lower

our cost of living.

Saying that we concentrate on nuclear and grid tied renewables which is all a bit debatable?

Heat energy is a much more realistic proposition to store and we are stuck in the mind set of the grid again as

thermal collectors theoretically produce more power.Also in the UK Hydro IE non pumped river fed storage has huge returns but the whole FIT scheme is screwed

towards the corporates again.

Its Fubar but currently all battery storage methods have huge embedded energy and resource costs. We need to look

at how we power our homes and not just how we can continue as we are used to.

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Response tostuartiannaylor, 6 December 2011 11:31AM

All very true - the old reduce, reuse, recycle mantra applied to energy. But while we must do that, the worry is it is not

sufficient.

It's like Government Ministers insisting we should insulate houses before fitting solar panels - yes we should, but as

we cannot wait to start fitting solar panels until we have fully insulated all homes, and as we are likely to need both,

we should be doing both now.

So I completely agree, but think it is useful to look at these technologies - even if it just shows they are difficult and

expensive so we should cut energy use to require as few of them as possible.


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Via Twitter...

@jontybabayou might be interested in this innovation prize for energy storage -energystoragechallenge.com

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Response toBluecloud, 6 December 2011 10:40AM

The generators are synchronised so this isn't a problem. Check out www.dynamicdemand.co.uk and you can see a

little meter telling you what the grid is doing right now (well...with an internet time lag).

Not expecting you to rush down and turn your fridge off though.


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stuartiannaylor6 December 2011 11:45AM

Response tostuartiannaylor, 6 December 2011 11:31AM

This sort of sums the situation up .... http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/dec/05/energy-companies-lend-staff-

government


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Just another thought - some renewables can store energy too - shutting hydro down can allow water to build up

during windy spells that could be released more quickly during still periods for example. Tidal lagoons could also

have some flexibility (though shorter period as they can only hold on while the tide is lower than the lagoonobviously).


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whythefilter6 December 2011 11:48AM

if we could vastly improve energy storage we could presumably make do with the energy sources we already have?
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12/69

Perhaps there is another way of looking at energy storage. Rather than focus on ever more efficient (and expensive)

ways of generating and consuming energy, we could look at mimicking a bio-energy cycle that shows us how not to

waste it.Photosynthesis may not be the most efficient energy conversion process but it is an efficient energy re-cycling loop,

plants grow, die, turn to compost, feed the next plants...We on the other hand send 6 million Tonnes of clean wood to

landfill, 2O mil Ts of food waste, and generate around 100 mil Ts of bio-waste a year, which is all stored energy.

Landfill gas engines tap some of it, but there's 10-20 TWh of electricity available every year we fail to capture. Addthe energythat is saved by using the residue as fertiliser and we start to mimic a natural cycle. Millions of homes in

developing countries who will never have fridges or be linked to smart grids could still utilise biogas, and do. A pity we

cant retrofit our homes this way. My (TM) biogas trapping pyjamas for men over 50 will shortly be on the market.


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wscherphof6 December 2011 12:01PM

Surely, creating better energy storage options is valuable. Surely, renewable energy sources are better than fossilfuels. Surely, nuclear is not an answer in any way.

But what we probably need the most at this moment, is a clear problem statement. What exactly is it that we're trying

to fix here? What are the things that we worry about and are the values that we want to preserve or generate? What

defines a good solution?Is it: ban CO2, everything must turn green? Is it: peak loads and demand troughs are a total waste, we need to invent

a system that can bend these massive costs towards something that creates value? Is it: we need a system that

creates room for a gradual shift towards renewables, by making peak shaving and trough filling a profitable business?

I actually think the Peter Sinclair videohttp://youtu.be/pSdnycHfLnQdoes a really good job in pinpointing some of this

(thanks,Bluecloud). I am also convinced that we create the most value right now not by inventing yet another state of

the art new revolutionary technology achievement, but by making really clear what the problem is we're trying to solve

and what visions we share on the directions we should take to get nearer to where we're heading.


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stuartiannaylor6 December 2011 12:01PM

I know this is off topic but a big push to refurb and build low energy housing, (passivhaus) and reductions in tax and

incentives in insulation and energy efficient renewables (FIT / RHI). This would follow the German model where theybuild themselves out of recession. Also due to the bulk of many building materials this acts as a hidden protectionism

as much is home grown. As said this would reduce our cost of living. stimulate the economy, lower the cost of livingwhich also makes jobs more economically viable.

Its just building insulation and pretty standard techniques and it would have benefits accross the board.


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13/69


Another reason http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/dec/05/uk-government-intelligence-nuclear-industry


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Timsky6 December 2011 12:09PM

Given that most domestic energy in UK ( for six months of the year at least) is for space heating, storing solar energy

in large well-insulated tanks makes sense, and then heat-pumping it up to a higher temperature for under-floor

heating. Source temperature would probably be significantly higher than either air or ground sources, so a heat pump

should be very efficient. No batteries required, though a bit of a.c. to drive the pump.


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ShammyB6 December 2011 12:10PM

If we assume mankind is a faction in the same mould as a 'god' video game (Sid Meirr's civilisation et al), then it

becomes obvious that the one thing our 'tech-tree' is missing is a portable power supply. Without that, we can't move

forward to all the sci-fi technologies we dream about.

The only thing we currently have that can provide the sort of power output is the internal combustion engine. If we

had a battery that could meet that sort of output, and be about the size of a shoebox or less, we would also soon

have cell phones as powerful as desktop computers, but that is only the start: autonomous robots, energy weapons,

and maybe even holidays on Mars would all follow.

High density batteries are really that important - not just for energy production, but human technology generally: they

are our one big stumbling block.

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ponder6 December 2011 12:10PM
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The thing about the Manhattan Project was that cost was largely no object. There was nothing of comparable military

effectiveness to an atomic bomb. However, for energy, the end product has to be available at a reasonable price,

which is much more challenging.

Yes, we could have fusion or renewables+storage powering everything given enough effort, but if it's not affordable,

who's going to do it?


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I think we are confusing the main push of the Manhattan project. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium was always on

the cards but it doesn't provide weapons!


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BettyWindsor6 December 2011 12:23PM

Renewables wouldn't need to be supported by the "back-up" baseload provided by fossil fuels or nuclear.

So, these wonderful renewables still need nasty fossil fuel and nuclear backup

It negs the question that if you have to build backup then why bother with the renewables


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fr33cycler6 December 2011 12:23PM

Response toTimsky, 6 December 2011 12:09PM

Could those tanks double up as swimming pools...then they'd be really popular.


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MikeRichards6 December 2011 12:28PM

Response tohowardmarch, 6 December 2011 10:15AM

Your guess was right - electrolysis and fuel cells as a combination aren't actually very efficient. Although electrolysiscan in theory be up to 90% efficient, it never is in practice and you are hard pushed to run it at 70% efficient.

Fuel cells again can be up to 85% efficient (if you use the heat they inevitably produce in operation), but a more

general figure is 50%.

So the total efficiency of the system would be 70% * 50% = 35%. Which is around the efficiency of a nuclear power

plant - but you'd still need to factor in the cost of maintaining the equipment and building storage for the hydrogen -

an expensive task and one which also impacts efficiency because compression and decompression use energy.

Going beyond this, is there any chemical method that could use hydrogen to synthesise simple hydrocarbons?

Using hydrogen to make simple hydrocarbons is a well-understood process, it's called the Fischer Tropsch (FT)

process and is done by reacting hydrogen with carbon monoxide at high temperatures and pressures in the presence

of an iron or cobalt catalyst. It was the main source of refined aviation fuel for Germany in World War II and was used

by SASOL in South Africa to produce oil in the face of international sanctions. A number of small companies arelooking at it today, mostly to get high quality liquid fuel out of oil shale and coal, but the principle is applicable to

anything that contains carbon and where you can get hydrogen.

The FT process usually get hydrogen from steam rather than pumping hydrogen into the reactor as steam is cheap

and easy. Having said that the US Navy has looked at making synthetic fuel for ships using FT with the hydrogen

coming from electrolysis. It won't be economic, but the US Navy is more concerned with a secure fuel supply thanwhat it costs.


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cactiform6 December 2011 12:49PM

Rotary storage should be considered as a back-up for windmills. If a flywheel energy store was built into the base of

every (new) windmill, the distributed storage would add up to a significant amount. Not sufficient to cover days

without wind, but enough to allow the system to respond to surges in demand, giving time for alternative generators

to be run up.

Rotary energy storage would also help to get rid of the nonsense of wind farm operators being paid to not produce

power as the power could be dumped into the storage.


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DoctorChris6 December 2011 12:56PM
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Response toBettyWindsor, 6 December 2011 12:23PM

What few seem to realise is that about 90% of the lifetime cost of generating electricity from fossil fuels is the cost ofthe fuel; only about 10% is the cost of the capital equipment. The main benefit from renewables is that you don't need

to burn the fossil fuel when the renewables are generating. Even if you had to keep exactly the same fossil-fuel

generating capacity, you would still get 90% of the benefit from the renewables that you would get if they generated

the same number of GWh in a completely reliable and predictable way. That is why it is worth bothering with

renewables.


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Meitnerium2786 December 2011 12:56PM

Response toBettyWindsor, 6 December 2011 12:23PM

It negs the question that if you have to build backup then why bother with the renewables

Most sailing boats of any size have a backup Diesel. Why not just dispense with the sails? Think about it.

The wind doesn't blow all the time, but conventional power plants don't run all the time either. Having multiple energy

sources provides security against variations in costs, accidents and natural disasters.

The "market" doesn't factor these in, which is why government intervention is necessary.


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Keep6 December 2011 12:57PM

The thought of flywheels as a storage mechanism appeals to me.

There is a company out there with a working 20MW storage facility,Beacon Power.I am not sure whether this is the

future though because their share price has fallen off a cliff in the last year.


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ifsowhyso6 December 2011 12:57PM

Response toMikeRichards, 6 December 2011 12:28PM

Using hydrogen to make simple hydrocarbons is a well-understood process, it's called the Fischer Tropsch (FT)process and is done by reacting hydrogen with carbon monoxide at high temperatures and pressures in the presence
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of an iron or cobalt catalyst. It was the main source of refined aviation fuel for Germany in World War II and was used

by SASOL in South Africa to produce oil in the face of international sanctions.

New, yet more diabolical method to produce Hydro-carbons?. No thanks, says earth.

As many suggested above, conversion of energy rather than storage as such (like batteries) is the viable solution. (

Yes, you need batteries for transportation and other mobile items).

I have an Idea. ( Not original, but there is nothing new under the sun.)

Use Solar energy to split water. Storing hydrogen is difficult, not impossible.


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HollyTree6 December 2011 12:59PM

As i understand it the problem with hydrogen is storage.

Could you hydraulic fracture (frack) suitable rock and inject hydrogen for storage?


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Response toFC1967, 6 December 2011 11:20AM

I have reached the conclusion that we need the Manhatten Project on Concentrated Solar Thermal - Spain should be

the hub

I agree, except that the North African plan should be given equal or greater priority. It gives the politicians in North

Africa an inducement to work closely with Europe. Unlike oil, they would have no alternative markets for the

electricity, but they would hold the generation plant hostage. It's a win-win situation for both sides.What's more, it could be generating significant output in 10 years, whereas the timescale for fusion is currently 50

years to never depending on how you rate the engineering challenges.

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Fracking is a worry as the whole water table can be changed (fractured) the idea of shattering the very ground

between our feet at the expensive of future generations to gain further hydrocarbons or store a potential timebomb is

fubar.In the UK it has been published that there is no regulation and many of the fears are by the actual engineers involved

in fracking practises.

Its hugely expensive if the toxic side is dealt with safely and thats a huge problem as at the moment it isn't.


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Response toHollyTree, 6 December 2011 12:59PM

Could you hydraulic fracture (frack) suitable rock and inject hydrogen for storage?

Hydrogen escapes from almost everything, that's the problem. Fractured rock would just be one big leak.


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Keep6 December 2011 1:10PM

Talking about hydrogen storage, Robert Crabtree at Yale had a neat idea for hydrogen storage in chemical entities

rather than big pressurized containers which is a bit blue skies at the moment but nearer than fusion I suggest. Thepaper outlining it ishere though that is probably behind a paywall (sorry reading this at uni so cant tell).

It would need research into the catalysts to do the conversions acceptably and the R&D to make a workable device

but it looks a cool idea.


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howardmarch

6 December 2011 1:16PM

Response toMikeRichards, 6 December 2011 12:28PM

Thanks for the info, Mike.

70% energy efficiency for the production of hydrogen by hydrolysis is better than I was expecting. My idea for using

the hydrogen was to use it for compensating for output fluctuations from power sources; for example, where the

electricity comes ashore from an offshore wind farm, build a combined power plant that uses a proportion of theelectricity to create hydrogen, then when there is not enough source power burn the hydrogen on site in a hydrogen

fired power station. Obviously that's a lot of infrastructure, but nothing particularly radical.
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That might be fairly inefficient over the whole cycle, but how does it compare to current alternatives? The important

feature is that it could in principle be built anywhere and doesn't need any technological breakthroughs. It should be

fairly clean as well, although I don't know what materials would be needed for the electrolysis equipment.

Regarding the hydrocarbons, the FT process sounds interesting, but I was hoping for a process that uses

atmospheric CO2 as the carbon source. Similar to photosynthesis in some ways, but hopefully faster and moreefficient. The basic idea is to use energy, carbon (from a "free" source such as atmospheric CO2) and possibly

oxygen to create a stable liquid (at room temperature) that is a high density energy source, such as alcohol or octane.Hydrogen seemed an obvious energy input to the process as an intermediate for electricity, but even better would be

if it could use electricity directly; maybe that's just fantasy.

As well as providing fuel for motor vehicles, if it could be done, such a synthetic fuel might be a better solution for

transporting power from desert solar power plants (e.g. the Sahara) than long distance HVDC lines.

energy source is to grow some plants, and harvest the greenery,


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ffynnongarw6 December 2011 1:24PM

DoctorChris

"What few seem to realise is that about 90% of the lifetime cost of generating electricity from fossil fuels is the cost of

the fuel; only about 10% is the cost of the capital equipment."

Totally wrong. For gas stations capital cost is greater than 10% and there are also significant costs associated with

operations manpower, maintenance, grid connection charges, rates, insurance etc. Gas costs are approx 65%, much

less than the 90%. For coal stations the capital element is even higher. Once again there are major costs for

limestone purchase, ash disposal as well as the operations and maintenance costs I have listed for gas stations. Insummary fuel costs are very much lower than 90%.


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howardmarch6 December 2011 1:30PM

Response toifsowhyso, 6 December 2011 12:57PM

New, yet more diabolical method to produce Hydro-carbons?. No thanks, says earth.As many suggested above, conversion of energy rather than storage as such (like batteries) is the viable solution. (

Yes, you need batteries for transportation and other mobile items).

I have an Idea. ( Not original, but there is nothing new under the sun.)

Use Solar energy to split water. Storing hydrogen is difficult, not impossible.

There's nothing wrong with hydrocarbons as such, just their source. Hydrogen can be stored but not as easily as

hydrocarbons created using hydrogen. The overall cycle would be carbon neutral - creating the hydrocarbon
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consumes carbon and burning it releases it. The problem at the moment is that the carbon was captured millions of

years ago.


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NickRouse6 December 2011 1:42PM

For a better way of storing energy on a large scale look at Isentropic Ltd's scheme

www.isentropic.co.uk/

Use a reversible heat-pump/heat-engine to transfer heat between two insulated tanks of gravel. It has aconservatively projected round-trip efficiency of 72% and a added cost for storing the electricity of 1.1p/kWh.

Even if this price is optimistic, it is likely to be substantially cheaper than any chemically based system and more

efficient than most. It contains no rare or toxic materials and can be put anywhere and can be expanded to multi-

GWh levels with more gravel tanks.

The only rivals for price are pumped hydro storage and underground compressed air storage. Both these are

restricted to a few geographical areas and there are not many available in the UK. Pumped hydro has a round-trip

efficiency of about 74% and existing compressed air schemes run at about 50%.

Before anyone says that this contravenes Carnot's limit, no it does not. The thermodynamics are impeccable. The

closeness to the theoretical reversibility of the heat pump/heat engine has been proved in prototypes. Cost and

durability are yet to be proved but the prospects are a lot better than batteries, flow and otherwise, hydrogen,

flywheels, superconductors, cryogenic or other schemes.


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LeoHickman6 December 2011 1:44PM

I've just received this response from Toby Peters ofHighview Power...

Part 1

Yes, energy storage is seen as the key enabling technology for the low carbon grid to time-shift and firm up wrong-

time intermittent renewable energy. But it can be equally valuable with must-run plants, such as nuclear, providing

shape and shifting off-peak excess to peak time demand.

Critically energy storage is estimated to be worth more than$100bnglobally over the next decade and expected to

generate more than100,000new jobs so it is a big opportunity. Those are big incentives alone for investment by theGovernment.

In America, energy storage is a key pillar of both its low carbon and stimulus programme with more than $200M (pdf)

allocated to energy storage projects from 2011 to 2015; while there is both new legislation to require energy storage

on the Grid as well astax incentives to support deployment.The key challenge that energy storage developers face is the UK is that along with no incentives to support

deployment (unlike all the clean technologies which storage supports), the commercial opportunities of wrong-time
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energy are currently socialised out so the producers of renewables are paid whatever time of the day their energy is

produced and in fact even if it constrained because there is too much supply.

As an example, in the UK so far this year we have already paid wind farm operatorsmore than 3Mto switch their

wind farms offand then paid fossil fired generators peak prices to turn their high emission gas and oil generators on

at periods of high demand.

But the problem is that in the UK we can keep the lights on without energy storage so it is tomorrows problem. The

result is that for commercial survival UK energy storage developers have to chase the markets where there is thedemand or forward-looking incentives now e.g. America, China or India, Brazil, South Africa.

As an example in Inner Mongolia this winter, wind farm operators will turn their turbines off every night losing

36GWhs of zero-emission electricity every night as supply exceeds real-time demand. The Chinese government are

in fact accelerating their renewable generation targets to 100GWs of wind power installations by the end of 2015, andit is estimated China will need 60GWs of large scale energy storage across the region by the end of this decade.

In the U.S., reports suggest that approximately 25 TWh of wind energy was curtailed (idled) last year to keep the off-peak grid energy price from frequently going negative. That, says Dr David Doty, President of Doty Scientific,

reported by Green Tech Media, is about equal to the energy in 700 million gallons of gasoline just being thrown

away. Curtailed wind energy in the U.S. appears likely to exceed 40 TWh in 2011.

One point to add is that when thinking about storage, as with generation it is not about one technology fits all. A

diesel genset is very different to a nuclear power station; both have roles in our grid. And while batteries are viable for

small scale energy balancing, the problem is that historically, pumped hydro is the solution for large-scale storage;but as demand rapidly increases, the geographic constraints of pumped hydroand its needs for billions of litres of

waterare making it unfeasible in many instances.

Now for the advert: Highview Power Storage has developed and built a pilot plant of a novel energy storage system

which uses liquid air as the storage medium. Critically, the system can be scaled to 100MWs/GWhs of storage,

similar to medium scale pumped hydro. Liquid air can easily be stored in the same low pressure tanks as used by the

LNG industry - it is hundreds of times more energy dense than water (therefore taking up far less space) - and theprocess does not need large mountains or lakes.

cont...

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LeoHickman6 December 2011 1:45PM

part 2...

As said, this is not conceptual. We have a fully operational pilot plant, which by the way was part -funded by a 1.1M

grant from the UK Governments Department of Energy and Climate Change. It is connected to the Grid and complies

with all the regulations and inspections, just like any other commercial generator. The system has more than 150hours of operational time which is equivalent to two years of UK short term operating reserve usage demand. The

plant is currently being operated for seasonal TRIAD management (a UK specific low load factor peaking service).

In fact, Highview Power Storage won both the Award for Energy and Environment and the Grand Prix Prize (across

all categories) at this years The Engineer Technology and Innovation Awards.

for further information please visit Highview website website:www.highview-power.comor contact info@highview-